"It's Just A Tool"​ (not)

Change Happens and change management is a skill

“It’s just a tool”

Can we talk about this comment for a moment?

Before I discuss that comment directly however, allow me to state for the record, up front, that a tool alone does not guarantee success! People need to be trained, support for the tool needs to be provided, leadership needs to get behind it, even the greatest of tools can (and will) fail if it doesn’t get support. Conversely, you can pump an ocean of support into a bad tool, and you simply end up putting lipstick on a pig. 

Now on to that phrase: “It’s just a tool”.

Please allow me to use my super double secret agent decoder machine:

“It’s Just A Tool” = NAVIGATING CHANGE MANAGEMENT

When do you run into this comment? You’ll typically hear it when someone tries to introduce a new tool, and the immediate response is “why a new tool” or maybe “We already have this, why do we need something different”. 

These phrases are commonly paired with something like: “We can use this, we can use that, it really doesn't matter. Tools are just tools. As long as you have people and process, tools are all the same and don’t make any difference”.

Negative Ghostrider!

Lotus123 and Excel were both spreadsheets. Could they both do the same thing? Yes, kinda, sorta, mostly?? Not familiar with it? There’s a reason - and Lotus123 was ‘the’ goto spreadsheet.

Can you watch a movie on a 58” rear screen projection from a VHS tape? Sure, it provides the same movie as your 4k disc on a 75” OLED. How many people would vote the VHS option? 

Evolution happens, things move on, technology drives forward. New tools are invented for reasons. They make things better, faster, more accurate, easier to learn, easier to use, they make possible the previously impossible. Steadfastly staying with older tools is ultimately a short term solution. Older solutions often appear cheaper. End of life technology usually is.

The comment is meant to sound warm and fuzzy, and places people as the discussion point and implies that technology is a tertiary aspect. There is no question people and process are important, but it's providing cover so people and process don't have to face technology change.

The problem? If you stay with old technology, you get left behind. Don’t be left behind.

Now my corny cliché; business transformation is happening at an ever faster and faster clip, and it’s ever more important to keep pace.

Introducing a new tool is heavy lifting. It’s one of the hardest things you can do at a company. You’re asking people to move in a direction they’re not familiar with. The natural tendency of people is to resist change. Change management practices say that you have to be introduced to something 7 times before you start to accept it. Now, changing strictly for the sake of isn’t a good direction either, so don't change just for the heck of it.

Keep this in mind the next the time you hear someone say: “it’s just a tool”. Don't just nod. Look a little deeper. Peer through the veil and see the disruption point. If you can see the disruption, you can help someone navigate it, because the reality is, not all tools are created equal.